12/09/2008 @ 12:01AM

In Depth: America's Fastest-Dying Towns

The data come from the U.S. Census Bureau’s three-year American Community Survey, which gathered findings between 2005 and 2007 and ranks cities, towns and Census-designated places (CDPs) with populations between 20,000 and 65,000. We tracked four metrics: income growth, the rate of domestic in-migration, the change in poverty and the percentage of the population with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

4. Asheboro, N.C.

Asheboro is one of the few places in North Carolina where domestic migration rates fell between 2000 and 2007, from 10.5% to 1.9%. Poverty surged from 15.7% to 26.7% as incomes declined by 9.5%. The city, built on manufacturing and heavy industry for everything from batteries to tires, has yet to find a new niche.